


Gingerbread Rocks

by Adenil



Series: 12 Days of Spones [5]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenil/pseuds/Adenil
Summary: Joanna has her suspicions about how her Dad feels about Mr. Spock, but she's can't very well ask when they're in the middle of making a gingerbread house.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5: Indoor Winter Activities

Joanna had never spent winter break with her father before. She’d been alive a long time–ten whole years! (well, almost)–but she couldn’t remember ever seeing him during winter except through a view screen. She only got a little bit of time off school, and if she was honest she would have preferred to spend it on Uncle Vincent’s farm like she usually did, instead of in the cold wasteland that held Mr. Spock’s family home.

He had explained it to her, very somberly and in kind of a boring way, when he and Dad had flown down to Georgia to pick her up. The house belonged to his mother, but she wasn’t using it so the three of them could stay there instead. Joanna didn’t know why they couldn’t all just stay at Grandma McCoy’s house, but she felt it was better not to ask.

She’d wanted to see them fly in, but somehow she had fallen asleep during the shuttle ride and when she woke up she was tucked into an unfamiliar bed. She curled under the blankets and growled at the bright sun that was beaming through the window, and then she heard another knock on the door.

“Are you up, Jo? Breakfast will be ready in a few and we’ve got a big day planned.”

Joanna sighed and grumbled and blinked the sleep from her eyes. “I’ll be right there, Dad.”

She really meant to, but somehow she fell back asleep. Mr. Spock came and got her the second time, knocking repetitively against the door until she threw it open and glared at him.

“I’m awake!”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Your eggs are getting cold.”

She followed him downstairs, not bothering to change clothes, and saw that the table wasn’t even set. Dad made her help get around plates and things and she watched as Spock folded some cloth napkins and set them out, artfully arranging the silverware.

“Why do we need that? It’s just breakfast.”

Mr. Spock looked at her for a moment before gesturing her over. “Observe the placement,” he said, showing her where the forks, knives, and spoons should go. “Now, here, attempt to fold the napkin.” He had to unfold it for her three times, but on the fourth she got it. “Good. You are now capable of setting a table suitable for fine dining.”

She sat on her knees in the chair and fiddled with the big fork, turning it upside down. “How do you know all that?”

“It was a necessary skill when I was your age.”

Before she could ask him more he turned and walked back into the kitchen. She watched the way he stood very close to her Dad, whispering to him as he cooked the eggs and toast. She hummed a little to herself, thinking.

Finally it was breakfast time. Dad poured her a tall glass of juice and served her two sunny-side up eggs, a slice of toast, and some sausages. She saw that he was eating the same thing, but that Mr. Spock didn’t have any sausages.

“So,” Dad said, smiling at her. “We’ve got four whole days ahead of us. Do you have anything you want to do?”

“You already said you had plans,” she reminded him, spreading a pile of jam onto her toast.

He chuckled. “So I did.”

“Just as long as we stay inside because it looks cold.” She drew out the word for extra emphasis.

“Well now, Jo, it’s not that cold.”

“It is!” she exclaimed. “It’s freezing.”

“Your daughter may have a point, Leonard.”

Dad looked back and forth between her and Mr. Spock, incredulous (she’d just learned that word last week in vocabulary class. In-cre-du-lous. She liked the way it sounded). “Now that’s just not fair. You two can’t be ganging up on me already!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mr. Spock said.

“I would,” Joanna said. “And I’d do it, too. Can I have another sausage, or is the last one for Mr. Spock?”

“It is not,” Mr. Spock told her. “I do not eat meat.”

Her Dad went and got her another one and she ate that one just as quickly. “So what is the plan?” she asked.

“I’ve got something that I’ve had a hankering to do for a long time. It ought to be a lot of fun.” Dad grinned hugely and looked at Mr. Spock, who had the look of a suffering man. “Spock here agrees, don’t you?”

“I see no logic in further disagreement.”

“Same thing,” he said. He clapped has hands together and rubbed them, looking bright-eyed. “We’re going to make gingerbread houses.”

Dad was way too excited as he told her to take a shower and get dressed while he got everything around. She took her time getting ready, admiring the house for the first time. It was big place, and it looked old. The dining room and kitchen were connected, and then there was a huge living room with a twenty-foot ceiling. She hurt her neck looking up at it. She got a bit turned around and wound up in a room filled with all kinds of yarn. She touched a skein that felt soft and nice, and saw that it was connected to a half-finished sweater. She thought about Mr. Spock’s big chunky sweater, wondering if his mom had made it.

She finally got finished and went to find her comb, scattering her clothes all around her suitcase as she searched for it. She walked back downstairs quietly, testing to see if the steps creaked. They didn’t, unlike her Mom’s house which seemed to creak and moan if you looked at it wrong.

Joanna stepped into the kitchen and saw Dad and Mr. Spock spring apart.

“Joanna, oh, good, you brought your comb.” Dad seemed a little flustered. “Here, I’ll help you.”

She frowned a little as her Dad sat in the chair. He let out a sigh as he settled and she stood in front of him so he could comb her hair easily. She watched Mr. Spock go back to his work of methodically measuring out the ingredients and placing them in little bowls. He even weighed the eggs, frowning at one and putting it back in the carton so he could get another one that was apparently better.

“Have you made a gingerbread house before, Mr. Spock?”

“I have not.”

Joanna cast a glance back over her shoulder and her dad waggled his eyebrows at her, grinning. She grinned back. “Dad’s right, then. This should be a lot of fun for you.”

Mr. Spock seemed to sigh, and she giggled at him.

Truth was, she hadn’t made a gingerbread house in a long time. That was for little kids. But it seemed to make her Dad happy and to bother Mr. Spock, so she would put up with it. Anyway, it meant she got to eat a bunch of the soft gingerbread dough while Mr. Spock lectured her on eating raw eggs. She grinned at him and licked the spoon clean.

“You’d better save room,” Dad told her. “We’ve still got to make the icing.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve got to get this spoon clean.” She redoubled her efforts.

It was Mr. Spock’s turn to look incredulous. “Leonard, surely you will wash the spoon?”

Dad leaned back on the counter, resting his chin in his hand as if he were thinking very hard. “I don’t know, Spock. Jo seems to be doing a good job. What do you think, Jo?”

“Looks clean to me,” she exclaimed, holding it up like she was examining it. “And Mr. Spock, I promise I don’t have any germs in me.”

They both managed to stay serious for only a few more seconds before bursting into laughter. She was doubled over with glee as Mr. Spock sighed again and plucked the spoon from her fingers to begin washing it.

Once the frosting was done and the cookies were cooling her Dad started setting boxes of candy out on the table. He’d gotten a lot of them, even some kinds she didn’t recognize.

“What is this?” She held up a little box and shook it.

“That’s—” he said something sort of garbled and then frowned, looking at Mr. Spock.

“Slor-tukh weht,” Mr. Spock corrected.

“He brought it for you,” Dad explained.

She shook out a little piece of yellow candy and put it into her mouth. It didn’t really taste like anything. “Thank you,” she said anyway.

“It is meant to be eaten in conjunction with sweet foods to enhance the flavor. Observe.” He poured her a glass of water and instructed her to rinse out her mouth. “Now, try this.” He held up a little gummy shaped like a fish.

She ate it. “Tastes okay,” she said, chewing thickly to dislodge the gummy from her teeth.

“Now, with a piece of slor-tukh weht.”

She ate one of the yellow pieces and then popped the gummy fish in her mouth, eyes widening. “It tastes—” She stopped, too busy experiencing to be able to describe.

If she wasn’t mistaken, Mr. Spock was smiling at her. Dad was definitely smiling at Mr. Spock. “I’ll bring the cookies in,” he said as Joanna began cramming candies in her mouth, shocked at how good they tasted now.

She’d eaten a small mountain by the time all the cookies were set up and they began to build. There was a brief moment of disagreement between Dad and Mr. Spock where Dad wanted to build an actual house and Mr. Spock wanted to “attempt to recreate a scale model replica of the Enterprise.” They gave Joanna the tie-breaking vote, and she chose Enterprise.

“That’s your home, anyway,” she said, surprised when her Dad looked a little sad at her words.

It quickly became clear Mr. Spock had no experience building anything out of cookies.

“Spock, I believe you might have overestimated your abilities,” Dad drawled as Mr. Spock shattered another attempt at cutting the shape of a warp nacelle.

“I do not see the logic in attempting to build complex constructs with food.” He sighed and the cookie crumbled from his hands. “It is not even a beneficial source of calories.”

“Here, let me help.” Joanna took the knife and showed Mr. Spock how to score the edges in little pokes before trying to break the cookies. When she snapped it, it was a clean break. “And stop trying to do circles,” she advised. “Our Enterprise will just have to be square.”

“Right, it’s an artist’s interpretation of the Enterprise,” Dad said. “Not the real thing.”

Mr. Spock frowned at him. “Very well.”

Their ship started to take shape, slightly lopsided and a bit clunky, but certainly sturdy with all the frosting they had used to glue it together. Joanna laughed at all the frosting Dad was getting on his face, and then refused to tell him why she was laughing. Mr. Spock manage to look innocent as well, despite the smear of frosting over Dad’s nose.

Finally, they started gluing on little pieces of candy. A blue gummy went on top, and two red gummies on each of the nacelles. Mr. Spock started to painstakingly lay out little bits of cookie wafer with tweezers for the windows, but Joanna put a stop to that by throwing cookie wafers at their Enterprise until it was covered in them. Then, Dad, who had the steadiest hands, carefully piped “U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701” onto the very cube-shaped saucer section.

“Oh, this is perfect,” he said, stepping back and grinning. “I have to get a picture of this to send to Jim and Scotty. They’ll get a real kick out of it.”

Mr. Spock took the camera from him. “Allow me, Leonard. You and Joanna should be present in the picture.”

They crowded into the frame with the square Enterprise in the middle, both grinning hugely as Mr. Spock snapped off a few photos. Then Dad took the camera back and looked through them, frowning.

“Hey, why didn’t anyone tell me I had frosting on my nose?”

They took a few more pictures with Dad’s new clean face, and then Dad went upstairs to send the pictures off over subspace right away. Joanna watched him bound up the stairs like an excited puppy, trying to think of the last time she’d seen her Dad so happy.

She couldn’t remember

She and Mr. Spock started cleaning the table, careful not to disrupt their work of art, which had started to lean threateningly to one side. She was contemplative for a while, watching Mr. Spock studiously scrub frosting off the wood table. She thought about how happy Dad was with Mr. Spock and wondered if they were in love. If they were, that was scary. She remembered her Mom falling in love the last time. It had meant they hardly got to see each other at all. She already didn’t see her Dad very much, so if Mr. Spock took him away…She shook her head. She was being childish. The adult thing to do, she decided, would be to let her Dad be happy even if that meant she had to share him.

“You said this was your mom’s house, right Mr. Spock?”

He looked at her, nodding. “It is. It is has been in our family for many generations.”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded back. “Uh, how do you say ‘Mom’ in Vulcan?”

He didn’t look like he had any emotion. “Ko-mekh.”

“Okay,” she said, and then asked what she really wanted to know, “And how do you say ‘Dad?’”

Now Mr. Spock looked sort of suspicious. “Sa-mekh. Why do you ask, Joanna?”

“No reason.” She went back to cleaning, carefully not looking at him, but practicing the word over and over in her head. She might have to be able to use it, someday.

The rest of the day passed in a blur and, despite her and Mr. Spock’s protests, they did have to go outside a few times. But it wasn’t so bad. Joanna was exhausted by the time her Dad carried her upstairs to bed despite her weak protests that she was big and could do it herself.

“I know you can, Jo,” he said softly. “Just let me help you one last time.”

She let her head rest on his shoulder.

He tucked her in and fiddled with the pillow for a moment, smiling slightly. She watched him through sleep-heavy eyes and then wiggled so she was sitting up.

“Are you in love with Mr. Spock?”

He looked shocked. “I–What makes you ask that?”

She just looked at him.

He laughed and glanced away. “When you give me that look you remind me so much of your mother…” He seemed to think for a moment before nodding slightly. “Yes, Jo, I am in love with him. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away, but we only have a few days together and I didn’t want you to feel…” He trailed off. “I don’t know. I just didn’t want you to feel like you were second place to Spock, because you will always be the most important thing in my life.”

She reached out and touched his sleeve, and he let out a sad sigh at the contact. “I don’t feel like that,” she told him. She puffed up, lifting her chin. “I think it’s great. I’m glad you’re in love.” She tried to quell the little voice inside of her that was still scared of what this might mean.

Dad smiled at her, blue eyes all crinkly and kind. “That’s very sweet of you to say, Jo.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Now you lie down and get some sleep.”

“Can I stay up and read?”

He stopped, halfway standing up. “Well, one chapter. It’s already pretty late.”

“I know,” she said, taking out her padd and turning it on. She listened as her Dad walked to the door and then said, “I think he’s in love with you, too.”

She heard him chuckling and then the door slid shut. She fell asleep before she’d read more than two pages of her book.


End file.
